T-Mobile fined $40 million for false ring tones

T-Mobile will pay $40 million as part of a settlement with the FCC for playing ringing sounds to mislead customers into thinking their calls were going through when in fact they had never connected in the first place. The company admitted it had done so "hundreds of millions" of times over the years.

The settlement, announced Monday by the Federal Communications Commission, also requires T-Mobile to implement a "compliance plan" to improve address the issues. The company says it stopped using the false ring tones last January.

T-Mobile admitted that it violated a prohibition against inserting false ringing sounds, and that it didn’t correct problems, the FCC said Monday in an emailed news release.

False ring tones "cause callers to believe that the phone is ringing at the called party's premises when it is not," the FCC said, noting uncompleted calls "cause rural businesses to lose revenue, impede medical professionals from reaching patients in rural areas, cut families off from their relatives, and create the potential for dangerous delays in public safety communications."